Monday 28 May 2012

Travel Series: U.S.A. part 2



Disclaimer: Memory on various details may be faulty; it's certainly foggy!

Me at 17 in Times Square.
Back in February this year, I shared part 1 of my U.S.A. 1998 travel story here. I'm back now to continue the story. To recap, we'd arrived in Chicago and had arranged for our next car from Auto Driveaway. This car would take us from Chicago to Philadelphia. But with a bit of time to spare, we planned on visiting some other places first.

Heading from Illinois into Indiana, we passed through Gary where I was reminded of the famous Jackson family. Their music (in particular Michael's) has always meant a lot to me. I remember thinking about Michael Jackson growing up in that place I was seeing out the car window, albeit under cover of darkness. From Indiana we passed into Ohio, then Pennsylvania. I bought a Dean Koontz book in Youngstown (STRANGERS, an old favourite I felt the need to read again at that time), and a pack of playing cards (which I collect when travelling). Finally, we got to New York City.

Pretty NYC!
Central Park in snow.
In my travel journal I wrote about visits to Burger King, the Statue of Liberty, and the cop shop where I tried to sort out more info on 5 traffic infringements I'd acquired at a busy Manhattan intersection. No, not kidding. I still have that paperwork somewhere in my files. Ahem...! We also went to Planet Hollywood, where I was highly indignant about the enforced gratuity (we don't really tip in Australia unless service is exceptional, and even then it's not always guaranteed - differences in minimum wage and all that). I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Oh, and up one of the Twin Towers (sadly got no pictures of the view just yet, I did take them but they aren't scanned. For the record, the view was amazing!).

My New York homeyette impression.

We left N.Y.C. via the ferry to Staten Island. According to my travel journal, it cost us $3.00. And we stopped for petrol at an Exxon station. hehe

Next, we went to Philadelphia, where we met a guy called Chris Manos who played in a ska band (I Googled him recently and found a few articles about him, or a guy I think might have been him! here and here). Then I wound up stalking him on the internet to see if he still existed. Still not sure he does, but I hope so! Chris was cool enough to give us a lift, as we had dropped our car off and needed to get places in other ways! He also played us a tape his band had made, and I'm not entirely sure that the band was one called Public Service, but it could well have been!

New York City graffiti.
Aaaaanyway, Philly was where we got our next Driveaway Car. And that's where the next leg of the journey began. I will write about that next time. ;)

Planet Hollywood.
P.S. Yes, all these photos are from NYC. I haven't scanned all my photos from the trip yet, so my choice of decoration is a bit limited!

26 comments:

  1. It's great to read about your trip! :)

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  2. So is a driveway car just a rental? I haven't driven that direction--you passed just an hour south of where I live (when you were almost to Toledo on 90... unless Gary gives you an 80 option, too, then I suppose you might have been farther south). But I wasn't here at the time, so I forgive you for not stopping. We still lived in Oregon. (Home of the Cherry Poppin' Daddies, speaking of ska)

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    1. Hart, a driveaway car is one that you don't have to pay for, except petrol and an insurance deposit. You basically get the car for free because you're taking it back to its destination for the owner. Often businesses will use a place like Auto Driveaway to transport their cars back if somebody's flown home instead of driving.

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  3. Wow fab pics. Your trip sounds and looks great fun!

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  4. Very cool, looking forward to the next leg of your trip.
    Xx

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  5. Sounds like a fun trip. I used to live on Staten Island. Taking a boat every day sure got old ... I love the Met. When I went back last year, it was the 1st place on my list.

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    1. I'm sure it would get old after a while :) I've only done it the once!

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  6. I've always wanted to go to PLANET HOLLYWOOD. Sometimes hopes are better than the reality! You're lucky you were in Chicago then and not this past weekend! 38 shootings, ending in 10 fatalities over 4 days. Wow. Thanks for dropping by my blog and saying HI, Roland

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    1. Geez, sounds like a really bad few days in that city! I've also visited Chicago in more recent times, no shootings then either (at least around me).

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  7. I have foggy memories too with memories of various details for various reasons (for better or worse). Sounds like good times and thanks for the pics.

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  8. Sounds like a fun trip! Yea, you have to tip everyone all the time here in North America. It was so much easier last month in England, when we could order drinks and not have to worry about tipping 1$ for each pint!

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    1. I don't mind tipping while I'm in America...I just found it annoying that the tip was decided for me at Planet Hollywood :P

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  9. I wanna be a globe trotter! But I'll have to live vicariously through you...

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  10. That's pretty cool you had a travel journal. It's hard to remember everything from a trip. :)

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    1. Yeah, but unfortunately my journal was pretty sparsely populated in a lot of areas. And sometimes my writing was so tiny I can hardly read it. haha

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  11. I will get mum to take notes from this post for her upcoming US visit. Thanks for sharing.

    Riya

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    1. No doubt your mum will do things better than we did (i.e. less sleeping in cars).

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  12. It looks cold...
    I laughed at your visits to Burger King and the Statue of Liberty. Great places, both ;)

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  13. I like how you refer to it as a driveaway car, almost sounds like a get away car :) Like you were bank robbers :)
    You can send me 20 pages to hoperoberson@hotmail.com if you want me to take a look, I'd be more than happy to!

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    1. Thanks Hope, I'll send you some pages shortly! Just gotta decide which ones :)

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  14. What a fun time! All part of the adventure. I have a love-hate relationship with NYC. It's such a great place, but sometimes it's just not the place for me. :)

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  15. BTW I got engaged on top of the empire state building, so that was kinda cool.

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  16. fun to hear about more of your travels although I am still waiting for details from your more recent travels!

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    1. Well, I did write about the Irish leg of the recent journey, at least :)

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  17. My father got transferred from San Diego to Gary, IN back in 1963 when I was in junior high school. My mother cried when we first pulled into town. It was such a dreary depressing place. We moved out a ways where it was much nicer and not all that bad. The funny thing is that my real family name is Jackson and there were 5 of us siblings. Across town from us another 5 Jackson siblings were in training for superstardom.


    Lee
    Wrote By Rote

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    1. I haven't seen Gary in daylight, but I imagine it could be rather dreary!

      Interesting coincidence about the two Jackson 5s :)

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Thanks for your words, me hearties! and don't forget to leave a link to your blog somewhere I can find it!